1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of wired, wireless or radio telecommunications, and more specifically to the field of telephone systems of which an office or a building telephone system are nonlimiting examples.
2. Description of the Related Art
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9cringing informationxe2x80x9d means any form of information, such as sound information and/or visual information, that is selected by a user at a calling telephone, and that is sent with a telephone phone call that is placed from the calling telephone to a receiving telephone. The form of ringing information can be a file, a search path for a file (in a server, in a telephone terminal, in a data file), a priority mark or bit, etc.
The term xe2x80x9cringing indicationxe2x80x9d is any indication that operates at the receiving telephone to xe2x80x9cwake upxe2x80x9d the receiver or receiving telephone, this wake up indication usually being in the form of sound information and/or visual information. Sound information may comprise a ringing tone, a sound file, etc. Visual information may comprise icons, a video file, etc.
A ringing indication(s) is provided to the receiving telephone in order to wake up the receiving telephone, or more specifically, in order to announce to a user at the receiving telephone that an incoming telephone call has arrived. As a result of receiving a ringing indication, usually in the form of sound information and/or visual information, sound information and/or visual information is shown at the receiving telephone.
It is common that a user can select the ringing tone of his/her telephone based upon the personal preference of the user. Every time a telephone call is thereafter received by the user, his/her phone will announce the arrival of the call by way of the preselected ringing tone.
It is also known that a caller-ID function can by provided whereby the origin of an incoming telephone call is announced on a visual display, thus enabling the recipient of the incoming call to make a decision relative to answering the call by picking up the handset, recording the call for later review, or ignoring the call.
In addition, most graphical e-mail systems provide that an e-mail message can contain a priority bit that marks the importance of the message as high, low, or normal. This feature enables the sender of an e-mail message to classify the importance of the message, and enables the receiver of the message to access the message as a function of its importance.
The concept of selectively providing for the special handling of priority calls within a mobile radiotelephone system is taught, for example, by published International Application No. WO 93/17531 (PCT/SE93/00145). More specifically, priority is realized in a cellular mobile telephone system by ascertaining that a call should be given priority, by classifying the call as a priority call when it is ascertained that priority should be given, by assigning channels preferentially to the priority call, by assigning higher quality channels preferentially to the priority call, and by through connecting or completing both ways of connection of the priority call including in allowing for more extensive paging of a mobile station than would be allowed if the call were not a priority call. This call priority service is typically offered as a premium service. Factors used in determining when a call will be granted priority include the telephone number of the call originating party, the telephone number of the call-receiving party, user information that designated a party as being entitled to priority, and telephone emergency numbers (i.e. fire, police, etc.).
It would be desirable to provide a telephone system that enables a calling user to predetermine the ringing indication that will be played or sounded and/or shown or displayed at the location of the receiving user wherein the calling user operates on-line and prior to the calling user actually placing the call. In this way, the calling user within the telephone system can, with only selected calls, announce the origin of a call to a receiving user that is within the telephone system before the receiving user actually picks up the receiving handset to answer the call. It would additionally be desirable that the calling user provide call priority information by way of sound information and/or by way of visual information at the receiving user""s telephone terminal.
This invention provides for the sending or pushing of a user-selected ringing information to the recipient of a telephone call, all within the confines of a telephone system. That is, ringing information that specifies a ringing indication, such as sound information and/or visual information as preselected by a calling user, is selectively sent to a receiving telephone terminal to wake up the receiving telephone terminal and to announce the origin and/or the importance of an incoming call.
In accordance with this invention, a file, or a search path for a file, a priority mark or bit is sent with a telephone call that is placed by a calling telephone terminal to a receiving telephone terminal. The file that is sent to the receiving telephone terminal may be a ringing tone file, an icon file, etc., and it may be an audio file such as a wav file, an image file such as bmp, a video file such as mp2, etc.
When a search path for a file is sent to the receiving telephone terminal, this search path enables the receiving telephone terminal to fetch a ringing indication as was specified by the calling telephone terminal, and this fetched ringing indication is then used to announce the arrival of the call at the receiving telephone terminal by way of the fetched ringing indication, for example, fetched sound information (audio character) and/or fetched visual information (visual character).
While the invention will be described while making reference to ringing tones and/or visual icons, it is within the spirit and scope of this invention to announce the arrival of the call at the receiving telephone terminal using virtually any form of a wake-up ringing indication, of which sound information and visual information are but two examples.
While the invention will be described in detail while making reference to a telephone system such as a private or a non-public telephone system, the spirit and scope of the invention is not to be limited to this utility. For example, the invention also finds utility in a global system for mobile communications (GSM).
In accordance with the invention, the calling user within the telephone system optionally selects ringing information in the form of ringing indication(s) from a data file in a server, in a telephone handset, in the telephone system, before a telephone number is dialed. Upon completion of a connection to a recipient""s handset, the selected ringing indication is active at the recipient handset to indicate how to wake up the recipient handset, and the recipient of the call can then use this ringing indication to determine whether or not to immediately answer the incoming telephone call, to record the incoming call for later review, or to ignore the incoming call.
The use of a ringing indication in the form of visual information is especially useful when the recipient handset""s ringing function has been set to a low volume state or to an off state.
In accordance with this invention, a calling user uses his/her phone to pre-select ringing information in the form of a ringing indication(s) from a data file whose sound information/visual information content is preferably known to all of, or at least some of, the telephone terminal users within the telephone system. As a feature of the invention this selection from the data file may be made by way of a well-known touchscreen. Once the selection(s) has been made, the caller dials the telephone number of the intended receiving user. The ringing information (or digital bits that represent and identify the ringing information) is then sent to the receiving user for example, on a call header that operates to set the receiving telephone terminal to receive the ringing information or to access the identified ringing indication from the data file; i.e., the selected portion of the data file and/or an indication/identification thereof is sent to the receiving telephone terminal. The receiving telephone terminal that is within the telephone system now suspends the call-received process until the ringing information is received by the receiving telephone terminal. The user at the receiving telephone terminal now hears and/or sees the pushed or sent ringing indication at his/her telephone terminal; i.e., the receiving telephone terminal is awakened.
In accordance with this invention, ringing information, or a ringing information file is sent from a calling telephone to a receiving telephone. When an data address is sent, the data address tells the receiving telephone from where in a data file the ringing indication (for example, sound information and/or visual information) that was selected by the calling telephone is to be fetched (for example, from a data file in the receiving telephone, from a server, by way of a search path, etc.).
As a feature of the invention, the receiving user may set the receiving telephone terminal to disable operation of the invention, or to store received or incoming calls along with the sent ringing information.
As an additional feature of the invention, the ringing indication that is active at the recipient handset additionally provides a priority indicator that alerts the recipient of the priority of an incoming call, which priority is designated by the sender and assigned at the physical location of the calling hand set. As an example of this feature of the invention, a priority bit, or flag, indicates the importance of the call being received as high importance, as low importance, or as normal importance. This priority indication can be provide by visual information that appears on a screen that is associated with the recipient handset, and/or by sound information that is recognized by the recipient as identifying different priority levels (for example, a high importance call, a low importance call, or a normal call). In accordance with this feature of the invention, an incoming call can also be labeled as a private call or a business call. In this way, the caller is free to choose the priority of the call, and the recipient remains free to choose how to handle the incoming call.
In an embodiment of the invention, but without limitation thereto, the invention is implemented in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The invention is handset or terminal dependent, the invention makes use of sound files and/or visual files, and the invention does not affect the network behavior of another telephone system to which the telephone system may be connected.
In sending ringing information to a recipient handset, the calling handset utilizes an H.323 setup message by way of which a search path is sent to a data file that is associated with the calling handset and with the recipient handset. The recipient handset then retrieves a user selected ringing indication based upon receiving ringing information from the network server. In a cellular system, the search path to the data file is transmitted in the setup message, and the calling handset uses the same protocol; for example, WAP, to retrieve the data file from the network server of the telephone system.
The priority of a call can be set to high, low, or normal wherein the actual indication that is active (played or shown) at the recipient handset depends on the implementation of the invention, for example, a visual display of an upward pointing arrow for high priority, a downward pointing arrow for low importance, and a vertically-extending line for normal importance.
An object of the invention is to enable a caller to indicate the origin of a call by way of a ringing indication(s) that is selected by the caller and that is known to the recipient as identifying the particular caller, and/or is know as containing information that is to be transmitted to the recipient without requiring that the recipient answer the call. By way of example, and as a feature of the invention, a visually-observable icon can be selected to wish the recipient a happy birthday.
Another object of the invention is to enable a caller to decide how an incoming telephone call is handled at the receiving handset or terminal, wherein priority can be indicated by visual information and/or by sound information. An example utility of this feature of the invention is when a call-waiting signal is received by a user, wherein the user can decide to accept or ignore the call-waiting signal based upon a priority that is provided by operation of the present invention.
Another object of the invention is to enable a caller to indicate the occurrence of an important event to the recipient by way of a ringing indication(s) that, when activated at the recipient handset, alerts the recipient to the occurrence of the important event; for example, a burglary, or the arrival of a guest at the reception desk of a business establishment. Such a notice giving ringing indication(s) need not be xe2x80x9cansweredxe2x80x9d at the location of the recipient handset in order for the ringing indication(s) to effectively convey its message.